The semiconductor industry has experienced rapid growth due to continuous improvements in the integration density of a variety of electronic components (e.g., transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, etc.). For the most part, this improvement in integration density has come from repeated reductions in minimum feature size, which allows more components to be integrated into a given area. As the demand for even smaller electronic devices has grown recently, there has grown a need for smaller and more creative packaging techniques of semiconductor dies.
An example of these packaging technologies is the Package-on-Package (PoP) technology. In a PoP package, a top semiconductor packages is stacked on top of a bottom semiconductor package (hereafter bottom package) to allow high level of integration and component density. This high level of integration from PoP technology enables production of semiconductor devices with enhanced functionalities and small footprints on the printed circuit board (PCB).
Integrated passive devices (IPDs) and technologies are gaining popularity recently. A wide variety of passive devices, such as baluns, couplers, splitters, filters and diplexers can be integrated in an IPD device. By replacing traditional discrete surface mount devices (SMDs) with IPDs, significant savings of PCB area can be achieved. At the same time, IPDs provide significant cost reductions and performance improvements over traditional SMDs.